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Page 379
worry seized him. He had not thought once of Alinor since he left the house. He wished she did not have to sit beside the king. It was all very well for Salisbury to say Lady Ela would take care of Alinor. Ian doubted whether Lady Mary, the Queen of Heaven, would be able to stop Alinor's tongue if she saw him struck down.
Alinor's thoughts were running in the same pattern as her husband's. It had been some years now since Alinor had worried about her tongue betraying her. During the time Richard had been king, Alinor had been much at court and had added to the training she had had from the old queen. With people she trusted, she was still prone to let hot words fly before she thought, but not with others. She feared herself now, because her rage at Ian was like to spill over onto everyone around her.
The frozen shock that had held her silent when Ian left her so abruptly had melted into a bitter storm of tears. Since their wedding night, Alinor had not given a single thought to the rival she once believed held Ian's heart. There had not been the smallest hint that his love for her was shadowed by another image. Most often he did not even close his eyes in loveplay. Some woman who loathed her husband had once told Alinor that was how she endured his embracesshe closed her eyes and imagined another man. The remark had not made much impression at the time; Alinor closed her own eyes, not to imagine another man but to concentrate better on the one she had. After she mastered her weeping, however, she thought back over the month of her marriage, seeking signs and portents in every remembered word and act.
Nothing had betrayed another interest. And I am a fool to have wasted time thinking of it, Alinor said to herself. Ian's own words had confirmed his satisfaction with his wife. "I had almost forgotten," he had whispered. What kind of love is it that could "almost for-

 
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